Saturday’s American Le Mans Series race at Virginia International Raceway saw a massive shunt just past the halfway mark when contact between Eduardo Cisneros and Marco Holzer sent Cisneros’ Porsche 911 into a barrel roll.

Dyson Racing scored its first American Le Mans Series pole of the season following a duel in qualifying between Guy Smith and Muscle Milk Pickett Racing’s Klaus Graf for the top starting position at Virginia International Raceway.

Smith, making his return to the No. 16 Lola B12/60 Mazda, reeled off a best lap of 1:35.965 in the 15-minute P1/P2 qualifying session. The Englishman edged out Graf’s No. 6 HPD ARX-03c by 0.204 seconds.

Last week’s announcement that CORE autosport would become the operational partner for Porsche’s new factory program in the Tudor United SportsCar Championship may have turned some heads, but for team owner Jon Bennett and team manager Morgan Brady, it was the culmination of a long-term goal fulfilled in an surprisingly short period of time.

Less than four years ago, the idea of going racing in the American Le Mans Series was still a dream for Bennett, who assembled a team as an extension to his manufacturing business, Composite Resources, in 2010. Brady, a former Atlantic engineer who had been part of the ill-fated US F1 project, was one of his first hires, turning down an offer to work for Penske Racing to instead lead efforts at the upstart CORE outfit.

The Prototype class in the United SportsCar Championship will include DP cars currently competing in the Grand-Am Series and P2 cars (featured) currently competing in the ALMS Championship. (Photo: LAT Photographic)

Following a four-hour steering committee meeting at Circuit of The Americas between officials from the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) and the Automobile Club l’Ouest (ACO), both organizations today confirmed a collaborative decision that cars eligible for the Prototype class in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship and the LM P2 category internationally will remain so through the conclusion of the 2016 season.

Set to debut next year, the Prototype class in the IMSA-sanctioned TUDOR United SportsCar Championship will include cars currently competing in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series’ DP class, as well as P2 cars and the new DeltaWing DWC13 from the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón (ALMS). IMSA officials are in the final stages of computer simulations and wind-tunnel testing of the three different types of prototype race cars. On-track testing will soon begin for balance of performance.

Lucas Luhr and Klaus Graf cruised to their seventh consecutive American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón victory Saturday in the International Sports Car Weekend race, lapping the field twice at Circuit of The Americas.

Luhr and Graf led all the way in the No. 6 Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03c, completing 83 laps over the two-hour, 45-minute race. Luhr extended his ALMS-leading victory total to 48. The race ran start to finish under the green flag.

With the ALMS competitors racing on the sparkling 3.4-mile layout for the first time, teams had the opportunity to test on Tuesday and Thursday under warm conditions. Muscle Milk Pickett Racing opted not to test – taking to the track for the first time on a rainy Friday for practice and qualifying.